DrinkableGifts Blog

Month: June 2021

Singing Rice Wine’s Praises: The History of Sake in Japan

Have you ever been out with your friends for sushi and been offered a glass of sake? Or wondered about the history of sake? Well, we have, and there’s some questions we’ve decided to answer.  What exactly is sake, and where did it come from? The history of sake is something that has been disputed for centuries. So we decided to dig a little deeper into it and see what we could find out. 

Sake itself is an alcoholic drink made from fermented rice, traditionally from Japan.  Locally people also know it as nihonshu, which in literal translation means “Japanese Liquor’. In Japan, people drink sake during holidays, special occasions, and formal ceremonies.

People enjoy sake in much the same way they enjoy wine. I can already hear you asking:  isn’t wine technically made from fermented fruit? The answer is, yes, it is, and while rice is certainly NOT a fruit. However, like a wine, you should sip and savor sake, and temperature is everything when it comes to perfecting its flavor. And that leads us back to the questions at hand. What is sake and where did it come from?